This is a quick demo to try out an idea I had for a 3 Degree-of-Freedom joint. The arm needs to be designed to have cables attached to it to actuate it.
The benefits of this joint are that A) the cables experience a larger radius from horizontal to vertical, B) it should be pretty low friction once made out of better materials, C) the loadpath bypasses the cables, thereby extending their lifetime, and D) the range of motion is quite large. If the strings are angled down more, it could probably have a range of motion larger than 180 degrees in every direction.
This joint was developed as a possible alternative to a universal joint (seen below), ball and socket, or pure tensegrity in Jeffrey Friesen's tensegrity joint. Read more about it at https://jeffreyfriesen.me/projects/.
2016